David's "Christmas"

I had to cheat on this one and take it two weeks ago during a trip home to Kansas City.

Ti's "Christmas"

I heard something upstairs only to find Santa had visited, so I figured I better take a shot. Here it is.

Mike's "Christmas"

We have been empty-nesters for a couple years and got lazy about decorating for Christmas.
I took this while over at my mom's and thought it looked a lot like the art on a Christmas card.

Cory's Christmas

On Christmas Eve, we looked out the window and saw this hawk having a nice dinner in the yard across the street. This was kind of unexpected - my parents live smack in the middle of Omaha, nowhere near the wide open country that I normally see these birds in. But wow, this guy sure was enjoying his dinner. I watched somebody else from the neighborhood taking pictures before I did, and he just walked right up next to the hawk to do it. After seeing that I figured I didn't need to worry about scaring it away when I took pictures.

Ryan's "Christmas"

In past years we have had bitter fights over who puts Angie the Christmas Tree Angel on top of the tree.

This year Maddy won:




/rl

Next week: "Pile"

"Christmas" is due tomorrow.

/rl

Craig's Crapulence

Crap-u-lence: noun. 2. Excessive indulgence

Mike's "Crapulence"

I'm going to refer "crapulence" to my broth-in-laws comic books.  I was going to call it a collection, but un-bagged and un-backed, it's just more of an obsession that my wife and I are now feeling the hang-over from.
I have put the about a third of the more popular titles up on Picasa so you might understand the thousands of dusty moldy books we are trying to save or discard here.  He collected these books from about 1960-1970 joined the military, and never came back to Omaha to reclaim them.  We have been paying storage on them for about ten years.

Oh, it may sound sweet to inherit a bunch of 12 cent comics that are now worth $20-$200 bucks, but near three weeks of breathing these toxic comics spores, grading, bagging, scanning and photographing have left us rather tired and crabby.

Ryan's Crapulance...

Fresh hot crapulence! Come and get it!




/rl

Cory's Crapulence

I'm not sure which definition of "crapulence" this fits better - Craig's or Webster's - so I'll just toss it out there with no further comment.

Next week: "Christmas"

"Crapulence" is due tomorrow.

/rl

David's "Closed"

I was wonderfully surprised to learn of my grandfather's (mom's dad) old neighborhood recently, thanks to some research by my brother. St. Francis Seraph was the parish of my grandfather from his birth until sometime after he married and moved over to 34th/Central area of KC. The church was closed in 1991 as the parish was merged with others in the area. The rectory (burned to the ground a few years ago, photos to come) and the church buildings were sold to Phoenix Office Supply soon after.

Though most of the lower windows and the doors are secured someone has kicked in the rear door leaving the building wide open.

Ryan's "Closed"

Given his lack of thumbs, Fugs hates it when his 'nip is closed.




/rl

Mike's "Closed"

Last Sunday morning I decided to do all my picture taking for both contest at one time.  Four topics.  As I worked my way North of Down Town, I found this road "closed" near the old Jones Street Brewery.
Wondering if its easier or harder to work with a brick street?  I am also uber grateful that I did not have to go out and shoot today!

Cory's Closed

The bus around here stops running at around 7:30pm, so I guess after that the bus stops are closed. But nobody goes around to lock them up at night. Maybe it's just an opportunity for people to come up with a good use for bus stop shelters at night? This one has a nice reading light, but it is built on a hill and kind of slanty, so it might not be pleasant to sit in all night.

"Closed" due tomorrow

"Crapulence" is next week's topic.

/rl

Ryan's "Film"

Back in the bad old days cameras ate a substance called "film." You would feed it a roll, take 12, 24, or 36 photos, extract the roll from the camera's tummy, and send it off to be processed. Some time later you could look at your pictures.

This view shows the winder and frame counter on my old F3. I love that camera, but haven't shot anything with it in a long time.



It looks like this is image number 35,359 on my D300. A 36 shot roll of Fuji Velvia costs $7.00. Processing would add another $10.00, so figure about $0.47 per frame. As mentioned by Cory, electrons are free. It would have cost me over $16,000 to do this on slide film. Wow...

I think I can justify buying myself a D3s now!

Or not.

/rl

Mike's "Film"

I think this is the third time I have taken a picture of this marquee.  Yet I have never been here to see a "film".
Film Streams is a non profit theater that shows classic films as well as independent films that would not usually be seen in Omaha because, well, Omaha is not used to such things.  The Dundee Theater would make attempts at this in years gone by, but not on this scale.

Cory's Film

My picture isn't on film or of film or anything, it's about film. This weekend was Los Alamos's Winterfest, where they do a bunch of wintery things. Part of it is a nighttime parade with floats from all of the local organizations and lots of county vehicles (garbage trucks, trolley buses, etc.) decked out in lights. It also included the local Shriners in their little cars (what parade doesn't?), and that's where the film part of this post comes in. I took my digital camera along and took oodles upon oodles of pictures of the dark parade knowing that at least one or two of them would come out alright. There's no way I could have done that with film - it would have cost a bunch in film, and the processing the pictures would have cost even more. But electrons are free and plentiful (and 100% recyclable!), so I got the above picture of a little car as it whipped past the bystanders in the background.

Tomorrow: "Film"

Tomorrow + 7: "Closed"

/rl

Craig's Crapulent Thanksgiving

I warned you.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Cory's Thanksgiving

I was inspired by Ryan's shot of the kraut last week to try putting Thanksgiving creepiest food under the light: cranberry sauce. Sadly, I don't think it turned out anywhere near as pretty as the kraut. I'll have to try harder next time.

Ryan's "Thanksgiving"

Thanksgiving seems to be the end of the leaf season.



I was too busy celebrating Thanksgiving to photograph Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving.

/rl

David's "Thanksgiving"

The Old Fashioned Brandy Apple Pie I make once a year.

Mike's "Thanksgiving"

If you feel that maybe you have put a few pounds on over the Thanksgiving weekend.
Maybe a class in Hip Hop Pilates will help restore that waistline to where it was.

"Thanksgiving" due tomorrow.

"Film" is next week's topic.

/rl

Ti's "German"

I was on travel for the last 10 days and just got back. At least that's the story I'm sticking to. Anywhoo, here's my "German". Aidan and I were sorting all his LEGOs because he wanted to put them together again. I heart me some LEGOs so I took a picture. And here it is.

Craig's German

I guess it's up to me to do beer.

I love these guys. Metropolitan are a husband and wife brewery in Chicago, Illinois. All they do are kick-ass German beers. I love 'em so much I have all their tap handles. I love their artwork and the look of these handles. The design is easily one of my favorites of all the handles I own, and I own a bunch.

I'm sipping a Dynamo (middle handle), poured from my keg fridge, as I upload this.

Ryan's "German"

Sauerkraut, the German form of cabbage.



Jenny has been taking pictures of jewelry, so I used her backdrop. And feathers. And flowers. And she laid it out.

I uhmmm.... hit the shutter release.

/rl

Michael's "German"

I tell people that I'm Irish because of my fair skin, but I probably have a bit more of the "Hun" in me from both sides of the family as my mother is half German, and my father half Austrian.

This is a statue in the Voss Mohr Cemetery at 138th and Harrison and I have been trying to get a good picture of this statue for a while.  He faces East, and I don't get up early enough on my days off.  Today was overcast.

The statue is of a German soldier, most likely 1848-50 by the website I linked to above.  The cemetery is the combination of two family plots, much like the one my family has in Holt County.  I wasn't there this weekend!  And we don't have a big statue.

David's "German"

From a German edition Monopoly game Sonya used when teaching German. It's printed on glass and was a pain to light up.

"Cars and Beer"... err... I mean "German" due tomorrow

I guess the obvious choice for next week is "Thanksgiving."

/rl

Cory's German

I'm going on a quick camping trip to Arches National Park this weekend, so here is an early post.

I expect that there will be two major themes in this week's submissions: cars and beer. So I'll start out the car faction with the Wolfsburg Crest, which appears on the center of the Beetle's steering wheel. Wolfsburg is where all of the original Volkswagens came from, so apparently they thought it would be fun to put the city's coat of arms on the steering wheels of their cars.

Ti's "You"

It only took me 2 weeks of doing this to be late. To be fair, that's 1 week longer than I anticipated. Anyway, here's my you or your me or my me?

Mike's "You"

The brothers are rocking some nice hats there, now I wish I wore one of mine.

I decided to try an catch what I look like when I first get up in the morning and look in the mirror.  Sandra says this is what I look like after she gets done using me as a "mule" at the mall. 

She has also been chasing me around with a pair of tweezers, so I must have got the focus better than I thought.  Note to self:  Soft focus, low contrast, less shadow.

Cory's You

Yup, it's me.

Ryan's "Ryan"

I still play on Merry-go-Rounds. At night. In the cold.

I don't (think I) normally look quite this demented.



/rl

Craig's "You"

This pretty much sums me up.

Next week: "German"

"You!" due tomorrow.

Who voted for me? I didn't even post anything!

Also, I can see the bottom in the bucket-o-topics. Please help fill it up. Either add them to the list or leave a comment and I can add them.

/rl

Ryan's "Incomplete"

Final update (11/12/10) : I spoke with the Director of Campus Security this morning who confirmed I was doing nothing wrong.

Sunday night I was taking photos of a construction site on the University of Nebraska Medical Center campus. I was standing in the middle of 40th Street (non Omaha folks: it is a public city street) when a campus security guard approached and asked what I was doing. I would have thought the large camera sitting atop an even larger tripod would have been a hint, but apparently not. He demanded I delete the photos I had taken, citing a "post 9/11" policy banning photography without the Public Relations Department's stamp of approval.

The sun was going down and I had a lot of homework to finish, so I complied rather than spend the evening discussing First Amendment rights with a guy carrying handcuffs and mace. Looking back, I should have rode this one out. I should have refused to delete the photos and continued to shoot.

To summarize, my "Incomplete" photo will not be completed.

/rl

Mike's "Incomplete"

In my mind, a train without a caboose is "incomplete".  I remember in the late 80's when Union Pacific quit using them and backed them up a spur off of John J Pershing Blvd.  My son and I would go play on them.

Some were sent to the scrap yard, and some were sold to private parties.  These were converted into cabins at the Twin Rivers State Park.

Eventually the caboose and the safety crew was replaced by the robotic FRED (flashing rear end device) or EOTD (end of train device).  (wiki)  Law and union rules both had to be changed to allow this to happen.

Ti's Incomplete

Since I came in midway through this week and it was my youngest spawn's second birthday today I figured I'd use him as my entry. See, Daylan is now two and only has 6 teeth. At the rate he's adding new teeth I figure he might have all his teeth before he leaves for college.

Cory's Incomplete

I'm in San Jose for a conference this coming week, and as I wandered the area around the hotel after getting in this afternoon I came across this sight. I'm not really sure what's going on: it appears that they've covered all of the grass in a particular park with white fabric, and there are various giant blocks placed around that say mention Santa below them. My best guess is that, now that it is November, we've reached Christmas season. And we all know that Christmas is incomplete without snow, so I'm guessing they decided to pretend they had some. Alas, it was high 60s/low 70s when I walked through the area, so I'm not buying it.

Next week: "You!"

"Incomplete" should be complete by tomorrow.

We haven't done self portraits in a while. Since we have two new players, I think this week would be a good time to do it again.

In case Cory didn't explain the rules - we don't have very many. Shoot this week's topic (a self portrait) between now and next Sunday. Digital manipulation should be limited to color & contrast correction, sharpening, and other operations that can be done in a traditional (and basic) wet darkroom. If the average guy with an enlarger and a bottle of D-76 could do it on paper, you can do it digitally.

Truth be told the rules are pretty loose. I think we just want to stick with photography versus digital art.

/rl

Two New Posters

Introducing two new weekly photographers - Ti Leggett and David Gunter! Since nobody ever actually takes their pictures until Saturday afternoon anyway, they should have no problem getting in on this week's topic.

Ryan's "The Right Place"

Saturday morning a number of us woke up way too early in the morning to go stomp through miles of prairie grass and weeds in search of pheasants. The pheasants successfully evaded us.

Driving home we came upon a truck pulling a boat on a trailer. Unfortunately the right hand wheel bearing on the trailer had failed catastrophically, allowing the wheel on that side to part ways with the trailer. Gravity quickly influenced the trailer and convinced it to just set the right side of the trailer on the highway. As it happened the highway was moving (relative to the trailer) some 60 miles per hour, resulting in a huge shower of sparks when it contacted the trailer. Some of these sparks took up residence in the grassy ditch along the highway and quickly started to reproduce.

I was once involved in a grass fire. They are amusing things to observe, especially when they have been ignited by someone else. I grabbed a fire extinguisher that I saw bolted to a bracket in the boat, and ran back to the fire to join the owner of the boat who was already there with an extinguisher. You know those little 1 or 2 pound extinguishers many people keep in their kitchens? They will effectively extinguish about 10 to 20 square feet of grass fire.

I was just about to ask someone to run into town and grab some hot dogs when some guys dressed as firemen showed up. Part of their Halloween costume was a couple of trucks with water tanks and hoses. They quickly ruined the fine grass fire we were enjoying.

I wish I had gotten photos while the fire was still going, but I was too busy testing the effects of a fire bottle smaller than a bottle of Coke on a prairie fire.

This is what it looked like as we were leaving. I was in the right place to help keep the fire from spreading back to the disabled truck and boat:



/rl

Cory's "The Right Place"

Maddy dressed up as a pirate for Halloween this year. She clearly went to the right place this year given all of the loot she has piled up.

Mike's "The Right Place"

It used to be, that if you were mid-town, and wanted a great place to sit down to BBQ then Fojay's on Saddle Creek was "the right place".  You were usually greeted with, "Hello, friend, what can I help you with today?"
Sadly, the owner had some health troubles and he had to let the business go.  There are still many great ribs places in Omaha that are not franchises.  Most of them as unique as this.

Next week: "Incomplete"

"The Right Place" due tomorrow.

/rl

Ryan's "Best of"

Maddy!



/rl

Mike's "Best Of"

I took a lot of pictures Labor Day weekend.  The weather was nice.
Sometimes when you go back through the old shoots and correct the colors, etc., you start to find some that grow on you a bit.  This the property adjacent to ours.  I don't get down there much, but its always pretty.

Next week: "The Right Place"

"Best of...." due tomorrow.

/rl

Cory's Best Of

It's early in the week, but I'm going to be in Boston this weekend and don't know if I will have a chance to post later. So here's my Best Of Whatever Time Period This Is Best Of post.

I actually took this picture just last weekend on the same trip that I took last week's post on. This is a view across Cañada Bonita, a meadow about 9500 feet up in the Jemez Mountains. You can see the trail I was on stretching across the picture from the left-hand side up to the split in the trees in the middle. Those trees were weird - all of the ones on the left-hand side of the trail had changed colors, but none of the ones on the right had. They're all aspens (with a few conifers mixed in), so I don't know what made the two groups decide to act differently.

Ryan's "Swiss Cheese"

So, I went out to shoot with some friends on Saturday. I found this plate of steel trying to look like Swiss cheese:
It's really not a great photo. I should have gotten a picture of this chunk of driftwood after everyone tried to shoot it down. I will enter that photo in another photo contest.

I'm not sure what made the holes through it. It was a decently hard piece of steel. I'm sure a Thompson wouldn't do it. An M16 or M4 is unlikely, and the holes are too big. I'm leaning towards something like this Japanese copy of a German MG 15. A Russian RPD is also a likely suspect. The M2 would definitely punch through, but would leave bigger holes.

We also tried to make pumpkins look like Swiss cheese, but some clown packed them full of explosives.

/rl

Cory's Swiss Cheese

I went for a long hike along the Guaje Canyon trail yesterday to take a look at the aspens changing colors, and along the way I saw this sign. I don't know what happened to it, but it looks rather similar to swiss cheese. Maybe somebody blew it up, or shot it.

Mike's "Swiss Cheese"

We were driving by this building a few weeks ago, and my wife says, "You should take a picture of that, it looks like Swiss Cheese!".  I think it looks like a barn with holes in it, but I did think "Swiss Cheese" would make a good topic.
Why?  Because I know what Ryan will do for the topic, if he has time.  He will blow something up, or shoot it.  I can't wait to see which.

Next week: "Best of since.... last best of..."

It seems about time for another "Best of." It looks like the last one was the first week of July, so post your best photo taken after July 8, 2010.

"Swiss Cheese" due tomorrow.

/rl

Ryan's "Workshop"

My workshop is incomplete. It lacks WD-40.



/rl

Mike's "Work Shop"

I don't really have "Work Shop", per say.  I have a man cave full of guitars, and camera stuff.
Lauritzen Gardens had 10 cent admission today for the 10/10/10 holiday and to celebrate ten years of being open.  This workshop belongs to a few men who have build an outdoor model railroad.  The actual "workshop" is off to my left.

I have to admit I have a pile of tools in the garage, but its not as clean and pretty as Cory's.

Cory's Workshop

Here's my new workshop in my new garage. There's more room in this one than the last.

Next week: "Swiss Cheese"

"Workshop" is due tomorrow.

/rl

Ryan's "Distant"

... will not be seen this week.

I wanted to stop and get a picture of a sign outside of Omaha that said "This way to Zion" with an arrow pointed down a side road, but it was on a busy road with no shoulder.

I give up.

/rl

Ryan's "Distant"

... is in the not-too-distant future. Tomorrow night.

I promise.

/rl

Mike's "Distant"

There are a lot of things on the "Distant" side of this lake that I have taken a picture of up close.  The water tower, the pigeons on the Comfort Inn, and Hardee's signs.
I shot a picture of the cranes at United Rental, and somewhere in there, maybe off to the right of the frame are some fishing docks.  Distant reminded me of term "relative" which I placed on my contest for a few weeks from now.  Bazinga!

Cory's Distant

At about 30 miles away, Santa Fe is somewhat distant from me. And yet, if I look hard enough I can still see it if I look in the right places. In this case, I noticed that they were doing a controlled burn in the hills behind the city. No, those aren't low-lying clouds in the center of the picture - that's the smoke from the burn.

Next week: "Workshop"

"Distant" is not distant. It is due tomorrow.

/rl

Mike's "Wild"

There are some abandoned grain silos along I-80 that someone decided to spruce up with some "wild" designs.
It is my understanding that the banners will stay up for 3-4 months.  A news story about this can been seen here.